PHOTOS: Breathtaking Images for Nature Conservation

Daniel Beltra

For the last 20 years, award-winning photographer Daniel Beltra has dedicated his career to conservation. He captures the beautiful, the comical and the tragic side of nature through photography. This image is of an iceberg floating in the Ross Sea off the Antarctic coast, Feb. 14, 2007.

Daniel Beltra

For the last 20 years, award-winning photographer Daniel Beltra has dedicated his career to conservation. He captures the beautiful, the comical and the tragic side of nature through photography. This image is of an iceberg floating in the Ross Sea off the Antarctic coast, Feb. 14, 2007.

Daniel Beltra

One of Beltra's most vivid memories is the emotion he felt while photographing the droughts that ravished the Brazilian countryside in 2005. In this photo, fires burn in the Amazon rain forest, set by local people to clear the ground for cattle or crop farming.

Daniel Beltra

During a storm, the sun's rays strike a patch of pristine rainforest near Manaus, Brazil. Beltra was recognized with Prince Charles' Rainforests Project Award, the top prize of the Sony World Photography Awards 2009. Prince Charles had him document the world's most beautiful and endangered rain forests.

Daniel Beltra

Daniel Beltra

New palm oil plantations at Kuala Kuayan, Indonesia. Deforestation has struck hard in Indonesia. With just 30 percent of its natural forest remaining, deforestation has placed the island nation third, behind China and the United States, in carbon emissions worldwide.